wouldn’t it? My guards risked a great deal, turning on Elban and taking down the Lord’s Guard, and now they have to risk even more, fending off delusional loyalists who want to put Gavin on the throne, gods help us all. The boy may look like Clorin, but what little he knows about governance he learned at Elban’s knee.”
“The story about Elban’s death was a lie, then,” Nate said. “The Nali didn’t try to retake their chieftain.”
“Oh, they did. They just didn’t get very far. My men were on the lookout for an opportunity. They killed Elban, they killed his guard—now, I think, nothing would make them happier than to kill his heirs, and end the empire once and for all.” The Seneschal seemed to notice the sandwich, then, and pulled it closer. “But I have bigger plans. And as you know, killing Gavin is no simple matter.”
“So Judah dies, too.” Just speaking the words made Nate’s skin crawl. “Why do you care?”
“Well, for one thing, I’m not a monster. I do like the girl.” He lifted the top piece of bread from the sandwich, contemplated the meat inside and pushed it away. “But it’s the bond I’m interested in. I doubt I can figure it out by cutting into their dead bodies. You haven’t seen anything like it before, have you?”
“No.” At least, not exactly like. “I thought that was Elban’s great quest, to figure it out.”
“Elban’s great quest was to destroy it,” the Seneschal said. “Oh, before he died he started to develop some broader ideas, but ultimately, he had no vision.”
“You’re different, of course.”
Amused, the Seneschal said, “Do you know what I see at night, when I close my eyes?”
Nate didn’t answer.
“I see the House,” he said. “Not the building; the entity. The machine. So much material in, food and goods and bodies; so much material out, influence and power and wealth. And what did the City Lords do with that influence and power and wealth? Wasted it. Gorged themselves on it, and accomplished nothing. The courtiers liked to play at politics, but for the last few generations it’s been the trade ministers and factory managers who’ve been Highfall’s real motive power. They’re the engine. Elban and the others were—” his mouth twisted with distaste “—a pretty gold casing that hid the real work. What I’ve done is strip the casing away. Give the provinces to the ministers and the factories to their managers. Let the engine run as fast and far as it’s capable of going—but now, instead of wasting energy fueling the House, it will power itself. Do you know what hampered Elban most, magus?”
Nate was impatient. He wanted to know what would happen to Judah; he didn’t care what happened to Elban’s empire. “A profound lack of humanity?”
That got a smile, albeit a cold one. “Time. It takes a man on a fast horse three weeks to ride from here to the farthest reaches of Elban’s empire. A carriage, with any kind of burden, half that much again. His forebears made court life attractive specifically so the families that controlled the provinces would keep a member or two inside. So instead of a sending an envoy who’d be gone for months, the Lords could send a page for the appropriate courtier. Whatever decisions needed to be made could be dispensed with in a matter of minutes, once the courtier sobered up and put their clothes back on. The courtier could choose to send an envoy home, on their own coin, or not. Most of the time they went with not.”
“I’m told you’ve abolished the courtiers,” Nate said.
“The city courtiers, sure. We took their factories and manors, and so forth; that makes for a good show and fills the coffers without doing any actual damage. But the provincial courtiers, whose home provinces have something useful to trade—iron or metalfiber or food—we sent them home, as long as they were willing to sign new trade agreements, and abide by the decisions of my ministers. I even sent guards with them to protect them along the way. Unlike Elban, I don’t actually enjoy the idea of slaughtering people I’ve known for years. Which is not to say I won’t do it, if necessary—I will, obviously—but my hope is to hold the empire together by mutual benefit, not force. Which brings us back to time. As it stands, it takes weeks for me to hear about problems in the provinces, and weeks more to respond. The delay isn’t